Silver Gorilla

The album was produced by Mike Denneen.[5] Among the album's guest musicians are Jen Trynin, Kay Hanley, and John Linnell.[6][7] Silver Gorilla includes a three-song suite, tracks 10–12, dubbed "An American Trilogy".[8] Many of the album's songs had been in the band's live set for years.[9]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[10]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[11]

Entertainment Weekly praised the "power and prowess of this Boston quartet, whose inordinately catchy Farfisa-streaked pop is instantly familiar yet, in this age of alternanonymous posing, remarkably daring."[11] The Austin Chronicle thought that "the Pit explodes with the furor of Elvis Costello's first few sneering albums and brims with the pure pop perfection of the rest."[6] The Boston Herald called the album "hard-edged pop that's aggressively tuneful."[12]

The New Yorker deemed the album "highly inventive organ-fuelled pop," and noted the "clever lyrics, catchy melodies, and arrangements that are more complex than you'd expect."[13] Trouser Press concluded that "for all of the pushing of musical boundaries, Silver Gorilla contains the Pit’s most accessible straight-ahead pop song, 'Favorite' ... Sailing along on a bouncy organ groove, it became a genuine hit in Boston."[14] The Cleveland Scene opined that the band provides "melodic yet rough-edged tunes that falter only occasionally, when the song gets lost in repetitive chord changes."[15]

AllMusic wrote that "this Boston foursome's loud pop-punk recalls the early days of Cheap Trick, when loud (not just fuzzy, but loud) guitars could exist in catchy pop songs."[10]